Matava Wins Silver – World Responsible Tourism Awards

Matava Resort has been named the joint Silver-winner in the Best for Local Sourcing category at the World Responsible Tourism Awards 2015 at the recent World Travel Market in London.
The Resort was named the joint-silver winner at a special ceremony yesterday at World Travel Market in London, part of World Responsible Tourism Day.

The Best for Local Sourcing, sponsored by the Colorado Tourism Office, awards those organizations and businesses that celebrate a sense of place and benefit the local community through the way they source their goods and services. The judges were looking for an accommodation that sources the majority of its supplies, goods, services, and staff from within the local area. The winner will demonstrate positive impact throughout the supply chain and use the local sourcing to bring a sense of place to the core of business and guest experience.

In his journal ‘Progress in Responsible Tourism’ Professor Harold Goodwin, Chair of the judging panel comments on why Matava, Fiji has been recognized “Having won Best in Marine Environment in the 2010 Awards, Matava are inspiring. In 2015 the resort’s entire expenditure was directed to Fijian companies and local Fijian villages. They buy locally from local growers (often providing the seed and purchasing the produce), trades people, crafts and services. All Staff are recruited from local villages and are provided with training to create the opportunity for advancement – all resort senior supervisors are local Fijians.”
Goodwin adds “Judging the Awards is an exacting task; the decisions which the judges take get tougher every year. The volume, quality and diversity of nominations grow each year and each category engenders considerable debate among the judges. The quality that we had before us this year is higher than ever – evidenced by the fact that there are joint gold winners in four of the twelve categories”.

Welcoming over 500 people to the event in London, Justin Francis, Managing director of Awards organizers Responsible Travel explained how the Awards were founded to change the face of the tourist industry. “The aim of the Awards is to inspire the tourists and the tourism industry by what is possible to achieve through responsible tourism” says Francis. “In our 12th year we have added one more inspiring winner and more remarkable stories which will shape how the industry and tourists think about the future of tourism”.